University Librarian's Cabinet: Minutes of the November 16, 2010 Meeting

University Librarian's Report - Gaunt

The discussion at the recent faculty meeting outlined the issues related to our recruitment of three new faculty
positions. Planning and Coordinating committee will be providing advice to us on faculty priorities, as will the
campus units. We can entertain five to seven positions for the three final choices. Our goal is to make a decision no
later than the beginning of January, so we can establish search committees and start the process. I noted at the
meeting that we will need everyone to provide advice on potential candidates so we can reach out for recruitment, and
also consider diversity as an important factor. We will also try to attract a target of opportunity position, but
considering the amount of work associated with the recruitment of the three new positions, we can make a
determination on that position afterwards.

Our meeting with VP Pazzani and others related to the NSF mandate for data management and preservation in all new
grant proposals is this Friday. Grace and I have already met with Aletia Morgan, the new person in his office that
will shepherd this program. We discussed developing a vision for data management at the university, determining the
roles of the players in providing support, and the immediate needs to move ahead. There is an FAQ on the NSF website
that describes the guidelines. Many of the directorates at NSF have developed their own guidelines. A lot is left up
to the "disciplines" to determine. We are hoping to have the cost of providing support built into the grant
proposals, which NSF has said is acceptable. VP Breslauer has offered to send a message to key faculty in the life
sciences asking for their input on this process.

Gaunt attended a workshop for deans and chairs related to the university budget process. VP Furmanski noted that
student tuition and fees account for 36.2% of the university's revenue, state appropriations and fringe account for
20.7%, federal appropriations .4%, auxiliary enterprises (dining/housing, etc.) is 13.9%, endowment and investment
income is .4%, F&A costs recovered is 3.1%, other unrestricted sources is 1.8%, and restricted income (grants,
contracts, and other sources) is 23.5%. These components comprise the working budget income for 2010-11. The 62.6% of
the budget that is unrestricted contains salaries and benefits, so that it really isn't unrestricted in actuality.
This year's appropriation is the same as it was in 1994. The original vision for public higher education was that the
state would pay 2/3 of the cost for in-state students. In 1990 the state paid 67.1% of the costs; in 2011 it paid 35%
of the cost. There has been a steady decline since 1990. VP Furmanski reiterated that the university learns its
budget at the same time that we do-when the legislature passes the budget. Shortly thereafter, the Board of Governors
determines tuition, which then adds the missing piece to the amount of funding the university has for the year.

Discussed the vacation policy at the faculty meeting on Friday; will take full three years for people to use their
prior carryovers. Cabinet can consider individual requests for exceptions based on need that are submitted in
writing. Let Fredenburg or me know if there are questions.

Fredenburg discussed with Cabinet the Sexual Harassment Prevention Course memo that was sent to deans, directors and
department heads from Vivian Fernández, Vice President for Faculty & Staff Resources. The interactive online course
is called "Preventing Sexual Harassment," and is available in four editions - faculty, supervisory, non-supervisory,
and student. Many units have made this course a requirement for her own department. Cabinet decided that the course
should be mandatory for supervisors; everyone else is encouraged to take it. Fredenburg will send out an announcement
to supervisors.

The Human Resources supervisory program is starting on February 16. Registrations are now being accepted; the program
is for new supervisors; three modules; four courses in each module; people here who have taken it have said it's
good. Newark and Camden should contact their Human Resource office. If you have people who want to attend, let
Fredenburg know.

Strategic Planning Process - Boyle

The draft strategic planning process and timeline document is on Sakai; the process outlines how we will develop the
strategic plan. Cabinet will be the steering committee overseeing the process so we continue to proceed forward based
on our timeline, but library faculty and staff and leadership committees in the Libraries will be engaged all through
the process.

Boyle discussed the items we articulated about what we want to see in the strategic planning process - primarily
communication and engagement of everyone across the library system. DeEtta provided some guidance in how the process
might evolve. We think we can have a draft strategic plan in place by July 1, and after consultation and comments,
come up with a final plan.

For Phase I - Vision - we thought we would use focus groups in the library using scenarios of different academic
libraries of the future. The estimated timeframe is January 1-March 1.

In Phase II - Identify Goals and Priorities - Cabinet will use the draft vision documents written for the retreat and
the themes that emerged for each of the topical areas as the basis for creating draft high-level goals and priorities
and for organizing input from focus groups. Feedback will be solicited from library faculty and staff. The estimated
timeframe is March 1-April 15.

During Phase III - Develop Plan and Test with Stakeholders - we will develop a draft plan using contributions from
internal stakeholders. The outcome will be a strategic plan to guide the work of the library for the next 3-5 years.
The estimated timeframe is April 15-May 30.

Phase IV - Process Alignment and Pilot Change Experiences - involves close examination of those processes and their
environments that will be critical for accomplishing the goals of the new strategic plan. The focus on this phase
will be on the areas of change that will yield the highest return on investment. Outcomes will be a comprehensive
understanding of what is changing at RUL, in what order, and with what expected impact, multiple localized, pilot
change experiences that are structured to increase learning and productivity, faculty and staff involvement in the
planning process, and strategic goals linked to the planned activities. The estimated timeframe is May 30-September
1.

Phase V - Implementation - is the time to confirm and make permanent changes that have been successful as pilots.
Piloting, and accompanying assessment, will provide information about how certain changes might be scaled up to have
broad impact and build in efficiencies. A revised strategic plan will be adopted and made widely available. The
estimated timeframe is September 1.

Phase VI - Ongoing Evaluation - is part of the RUL organizational culture. It should be explicitly woven into the
communication about the planning process.

A number of points were made about going forward: involving library staff and faculty at the right level of
engagement; using enough expertise and using it in the right ways; balancing focus on emerging services as well as
every day work; monitoring the level of specificity in the plan; insure that we have sufficient information regarding
the university's vision /plans to guide our vision and plans; focus on our user community and get results they want;
the plan should communicate intelligently to our users and be interesting to them.

Assessment Conference - Boyle

Boyle reported on the Library Assessment Conference: Building Effective, Sustainable, Practical Assessment she
attended in Baltimore, Maryland October 24-27. In his introduction, Steve Hiller from the University of Washington
showed a chart listing the names of people who were three timers; Boyle had the distinction of being on that slide.
All the keynote addresses will be in "The Library Quarterly" and are on the website at
http://libraryassessment.org/schedule. Boyle also went to a half-day workshop on Best Practices in Graphical Data
Presentation." Fred Heath's keynote, Library Assessment: The Way we have Grown," shows that assessment isn't new to
us; we are now in new metrics; we are service organizations after all. One of the areas that received a lot of
attention is the ACRL view of libraries. Megan Oakleaf of Syracuse did a keynote presentation entitled "Are They
Learning? Are We? Learning Outcomes and the Academic Library." Related to assessment, the VALE Assessment Committee
is doing a lot. Gaunt, Anne Ciliberti, Dan O'Connor and Boyle met to talk about the ACRL approach to the value of
libraries.

Announcements

Boyle reminded everyone that the updated Counting Opinions reports are available on the RUL Assessment Reports Sakai
site; if you want to be added, please let Boyle know. Reports are by category, in PDF and Excel.

Fetzer: Eileen Stec has agreed to be a member of the RUL Media Team, and Connie Wu has agreed to help out with
Rutgers Day. NB surveyed its faculty to determine priorities for the three new faculty positions; wanted Planning and
Coordinating Committee to have them for their meeting tomorrow; would be nice to dovetail with ALA.

Niessen: Attended Partnering to Publish seminar; people there from NYU, Columbia and Penn; the conference took you
through the various aspects of that relationship; would be happy to talk about it at a future Cabinet meeting.

Agnew: Attended the Association of Moving Image Archivists/International Association of Sound and Audiovisual
Archives (AMIA/IASA) 2010 Conference. Representatives from the respective digital preservation projects underway at
the Library of Congress, Rutgers University Libraries, and Stanford University were each on hand to offer their
perspectives and the paths their organizations took for digitally preserving their video. Agnew, Jane Otto and Isaiah
Beard represented Rutgers.